Book review by Edna Boardman, Bismarck, North Dakota

Here is a collection of brief biographies of the significant czars
and czarinas of Russia, beginning with Czar Ivan III, who in the
1400s decided to see what would happen if he did not pay the usual
tribute to the khan, and ending with Nicholas II, who, in the early
1900s, with his entire family, was murdered in a remote forest by
the Bolsheviks. There were several czars and czarinas who reigned
briefly, but Rice incorporates their stories within the biographies
of those who reigned longer and had more significant achievements.
The author struggled valiantly to tame the complexities that make
people avoid reading Russian history. This is not a complete history
of Russia, but the author does a good job of giving the non-scholarly
reader an overview.

Permission
to use any images from the GRHC website may be requested
by contacting Michael
M. Miller